Green Carnation

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Green Carnation
Green Carnation playing live at the 2006 Quart Festival in Norway. From the left: Terje Vik Schei, Kjetil Nordhus, Kenneth Silden, Stein Roger Sordal, Michael Krumins and Tommy Jackson
Background information
Origin	Kristiansand, Norway
Genre(s)	Progressive rock Art rock Progressive metal Doom metal (early) Death metal (demo)
Years active	1990–1991, 1999−2007
Label(s)	Sublife The End
Website	www.greencarnation.no/
Members
Terje Vik Schei
Former members
(See: full-listing)

This article is about the band. For the book, see The Green Carnation.

Green Carnation is a band from Kristiansand, Norway formed in 1990 that has created songs from both the progressive rock and progressive metal genres. Some also describe their music as art rock. Green Carnation's trend of music has continuously become less and less heavier after every release; from straight forward death metal, doom metal/progressive metal, to a more hard rock-sounding form of progressive rock and more recently, went as far as to releasing an entirely acoustic album Acoustic Verses.

1 Biography
2 Discography
3 Members
- 3.1 Current
- 3.2 Former
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Formation and early years (1990-2001)

Green Carnation is the creation of former Emperor bass player Terje Vik Schei (a.k.a. Tchort), founded before Tchort joined Emperor in 1990. It eventually split, with the remaining members creating avant-garde black metal band In the Woods....

Green Carnation's first album, Journey to the End of the Night, wasn't recorded until 1999. The release was a folk inspired doom metal album. Two years later, the band released Light of Day, Day of Darkness, a single track, 60-minute progressive metal epic. The album is highly regarded, and is one of the longest single songs in metal.

[edit] Genre branching and new identity (2001-2006)

Following this release, the band released their 2003 full-length album A Blessing in Disguise, which brought the band into another musical terrain. The album consisted of a blend of progressive metal/rock elements, slightly gothic tinges, and hard rock elements.

Two years later the band followed up with the album The Quiet Offspring, released under the US label, The End Records. This album brought the band into an even more hard rock style of music and is seen by many to be their most commercial sounding release. Later in 2005, the band released an EP entitled The Burden Is Mine... Alone. This EP marked the debut of bassist/guitarist Stein Roger Sordal as a lead vocalist in the band, with the song that shares the name of the EP and the song was written and performed entirely by him. This release also worked as a taste of what was to come with their following full-length album.

Early 2006 marked the release of their fifth full-length The Acoustic Verses. This album was yet another stylistic shift for the band. On the album, the band played all acoustic instruments, showing off a softer, warmer style for the band while retaining the progressive and darker feels they established since their debut.

[edit] The parting, present times, and the future (2007-Present)

According to Tchort's writings in the booklet to The Acoustic Verses, Green Carnation's next studio release is going to be the second part of the "The Chronicles of Doom" trilogy, which began with Light of Day, Day of Darkness, and is going to be titled The Rise and Fall of Mankind.

In February 2007 Green Carnation recorded their second live DVD, A Night Under the Dam, where they played the entire 'Acoustic Verses'-album as well as a few other songs. The DVD was recorded under a 30-meter-tall dam in the Norwegian mountains and was the last release to be seen by the bands current line-up.

On August 17, 2007, Terje Vik Schei announced that due to the poorly organized American tour and subsequent financial and motivational losses, the line up of Green Carnation had split up. ( [1], [2]). Tchort stated that he would

"continue writing music under the name Green Carnation, but probably will never play live again with the band."

The expected album, The Rise and Fall of Mankind, has been postponed with no current release date, but Tchort has said that the album will be released sometime in the future.